Weekly review of our top stories

Posted: Sunday, April 17, 2011

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A look back at the top stories of the week in the Athens Banner-Herald and OnlineAthens.com.

On Monday ...

• Headed toward the end of the legislative session, lawmakers let slide a controversial proposal to overhaul the tax code. The change would have lowered the personal income tax rate and charged sales tax on some new goods and services. House Speaker David Ralston said legislators will take up tax reform again, maybe as early as this summer, but he wants better estimates of how the rates would affect taxpayers and revenue.

• Madison County Middle School students and teachers grieved 14-year-old Tyler Fortson Moon, who died the Friday before when a mower overturned off Spratlin Mill Road and killed him. Moon was a captain of the Madison County Middle School football team, volunteered to help people with special needs and was an honors student.

• A bill that would allow voters in cities and counties to allow stores to sell packaged alcohol on Sundays passed the Georgia House and was headed to Gov. Deal, who has said he will sign the legislation.

• Athens-Clarke’s parks director told county commissioners that the Southern Off-Road Bicycle Association has offered to help build 3 1/2 miles of mountain bike trails at East Athens Community Park, giving the county its first bike trails for next to no cost.

East Athens park may get trails for mountain biking

On Wednesday ...

• Workers were putting up roof trusses on the fire-damaged Oconee Street building known as the Print Shop, but still no word on the famed steeple next door, which Steeplechase Condominium Association can’t afford to repair. The association is trying to give away the steeple, the only remnant of the church where R.E.M. played its first show in 1980, but hasn’t yet had any takers.

• Authorities set a hearing date for Matthew Robert Hood, 27, the brother of accused cop-killer Jamie Hood. The two brothers were together in an SUV on March 22 when an officer stopped them as part of a carjack-kidnapping investigation. Jaime Hood jumped from the vehicle and shot two police officers, killing Elmer "Buddy" Christian and wounding Tony Howard, police say. Matthew Hood has sat in jail without bond since, but a judge will decide Tuesday whether to revoke his probation or grant bail.

Court date next week for Hood's brother

• Experts and students studying East Athens’ Trail Creek said that the sediment in the stream still is toxic, more than eight months after a fire at a factory upstream poured chemicals into the water, killing all life. University of Georgia toxicologist Marsha Black and students in her lab took sediment samples April 4 at Olympic Drive, near a large wetland downstream from where a massive fire July 28 destroyed the J&J Chemical Co. They found the sediment still kills tiny creatures that live in the stream.

Toxins linger in stream

On Thursday ...

• Bats that plagued downtown Danielsville — settling in the historic courthouse at the center of town and the Strickland House on Georgia Highway 98 — appear to have moved to Carlton since they were evicted from the county seat. Carlton city leaders have hired a pest removal service to clear the night fliers from the City Hall on South Seventh Street.

• The state Board of Education voted to do away with the Georgia High School Graduation Test, allowing students to take end-of-course tests instead to show that they have absorbed the material and deserve a diploma.

• Athens-Clarke police said that a trio of home invasions this week may be connected. The most recent robbery happened early that morning, when three masked gunmen forced their way into an apartment in the 1800 block of Cedar Shoals Drive sometime after 1 a.m. They made four of the five victims undress, but stole only $20 and an Android smart phone.

• The University of Georgia's statewide network of automated weather stations will remain open at least a couple of months longer after donors chipped in money to give the system a reprieve from a planned April 15 shutdown to save money.